About Checker Plus for Gmail
Checker Plus for Gmail is a notifier that lives in your toolbar. Instead of keeping a Gmail tab open, you see unread counts, get desktop alerts and read, archive, mark as read or delete messages from a popup or the Chrome side panel. It is the work of one developer, Jason Savard, who has made a family of similar Google-related extensions.
Its strength is handling several accounts at once. It supports multiple Gmail and Google Workspace accounts, shows sender photos and can read new mail aloud, which helps with accessibility or multitasking. You can add your own notification sounds and voices. An optional AI feature drafts replies from a prompt, and it is off until you use it.
Because it works through Google's Gmail API, it asks for the gmail.modify scope, which allows reading, changing and deleting mail. The developer's privacy page says Google data is only displayed to you and not shared with anyone else, and that the AI feature sends the specific thread to Google's Gemini through a pass-through proxy that does not log it. That is the developer's statement, and the code is closed. It is free to use, with extra features unlocked by a contribution. A strong choice if you need alerts and several inboxes.
Pros and cons
- Desktop notifications and a popup inbox without opening Gmail
- Handles several Gmail and Workspace accounts at once
- Says Google data is shown only to you and not shared
- Recommended by Mozilla on Firefox, with regular updates
- Needs Gmail API access that can read, modify and delete mail
- Closed source
- Some extras need a contribution
- Optional AI replies send a thread to Google's Gemini API
Permissions
It signs in with Google OAuth using the gmail.modify scope, so it can read, modify and delete mail, and uses notifications and idle detection for alerts. Some permissions, such as background and webRequest, are optional.
